Making Schools Safer for LGBT Youth

Shelby is an openly gay junior at a large suburban high school near Boston. On most days, she says, she feels lucky to attend a relatively affluent, liberal school that offers her “an excellent education, opportunities to pursue my passions, and a fairly safe place for me to express my sexual orientation.” Issues like same-sex marriage, now legal in Massachusetts, have been discussed in several of her classes, and incidents of homophobia are addressed swiftly.

Nonetheless, Shelby says the undercurrents of homophobia run deep among her peers.

This is an excerpt from the Harvard Education Letter. Subscribers can click here to continue reading this article.